“Strays” is a live-action flick about talking canines. As a movie, it is not a good boy; it is a bad dog. But if I were currently 12, I might have reacted in a more positive way.
Here’s why: An R rating was forbidden fruit to me as a kid. (“Strays” reminded me of a lot of R-rated, 1980s films I snuck into theaters to see.)
The marketing for this movie has zeroed in on the film’s R rating: Bug, the pugnacious dog voiced by Jamie Foxx, is even holding the MPA box in his mouth on the poster, alerting you that the rating is for “pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and drug use.” Nice use of that Oxford comma, MPA!
Alas, I am not 12 anymore, which means most of the potty-humored jokes conceived by screenwriter Dan Perrault are either mildly amusing or not funny at all.
Additionally, the amount of profanity struck me as excessive, as if Perrault couldn’t think of anything clever for the pups to say, so he added five F-bombs to a sentence where two would have sufficed.
Since this is a family newspaper, I cannot describe the plot of “Strays” the way I want to describe it. I’m not sure if I can explain it at all without running afoul of my own professional MPA. I assure you the next line you read is cleaner than what I originally wrote.
“Strays” tells the story of an abandoned dog’s quest to bite off a very sensitive male part of the cruel owner who has deserted him.
Doug (Will Forte) is the vicious, weed-smoking slacker owner of Reggie (Will Ferrell), a ruggedly handsome canine he physically batters, cusses out, and repeatedly dumps in areas far from home. Reggie keeps finding his way back, which infuriates Doug to the point where he finally deserts him miles away.
Reggie meets Bug, a stray dog, and Bug’s friends Hunter (Randall Park) and the Aussie-accented Maggie (Isla Fisher), both of whom have homes. Hunter, a former police dog candidate, wears one of those cones they put on animals after surgery. Much is made about the size of a certain part of Hunter’s anatomy (hint: the same part Reggie wants to bite off Doug). Director Josh Greenbaum gives us numerous shots of Hunter’s endowment, highlighting how little this movie has to offer in the creativity department.
It’s Bug who convinces Reggie that Doug does not love him and has abandoned him for good. But it’s Reggie who comes up with his method of vengeance. The quartet head toward Doug’s place. Along the way, we are treated to mountains and mountains of dog poop and endless scenes of the stars humping inanimate objects.
Despite how little the actors are given to do, I liked the voice work enough to be a tad more forgiving than I should be. Foxx’s delivery is occasionally hilarious (his reading of “BLEEP you, leaf!” made me laugh hard enough to embarrass myself in the theater) and Ferrell finds a level of sweetness to Reggie that’s eventually at odds with his actions. Fisher and Park are cute as two neurotics who are sweet on each other.
I also admired how mean-spirited “Strays” is, if only because that characteristic put me on guard as to how far the filmmakers might go. It gets pretty nasty. This movie is more brutal to rabbits than “Watership Down,” and it features a bloody climactic scene that will send men in the audience running for the exits.
At least the plot’s nastiness kept me awake. If only the movie were a lot funnier.
★½
STRAYS
Directed by Josh Greenbaum. Written by Dan Perrault. Starring Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Will Forte. 93 minutes. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, suburbs. R (plenty of profanity, private parts, and poop)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.